While some people in our multiplier age are having a better, easier life, for many others, things remain difficult and seem likely to get even worse. They find themselves feeling cheated. Sure, there are always more things to buy — and at lower and lower prices. But being a consumer is not the same as multiplying themselves, feeling like there are two of them, or ten of them, or a thousand of them.

They know there are people out there who are having positive multiplier experiences — and they know they aren’t among them. They’re continually on the receiving end of multipliers at work in the world, but they don’t feel actively involved in multiplying anything themselves.

And that, in a nutshell, is why people can feel unhappy and dissatisfied in a world of unprecedented plenty.

They feel this because they don’t know the second side of the Multiplier Mindset: how to create new multipliers. The side of the Multiplier Mindset they know extraordinarily well is the consuming side — how to consume the benefits that others have created. But they don’t know how to be a creator of multiplier benefits that other people might consume.

This makes them feel like they’re sitting passively in the stands. They aren’t active players in the global spread of the Multiplier Mindset; they’re only consumers and spectators. They feel they’re being bypassed or left behind.

It’s not just that they don’t know how to create multipliers — the problem is more serious than that. They don’t even know it’s possible to create such a thing. They’ve always lived inside a multiplier world of others’ creation.

They’re not just incapable; they’re also unaware. Now, understand that I’m saying this about people who may have bachelor’s or even advanced degrees from the educational system. But knowing how to be a creator of multipliers isn’t something one learns in the existing educational system. None of the people who administer and teach in these systems has a clue how to create multipliers in the world. They’re consumers and spectators too.

So we’re not talking about poor and disadvantaged people here, but those who’ve had the benefits of education, training, and good employment in the workplace. They have good incomes and good lifestyles — again, better than has been possible for all but a few in the past.

Rather than spend any more time on unhappiness related to the Multiplier Mindset, I’d like to move on quickly to what it means to be a creator of multipliers in one’s personal life — and in the world around you.

In my next post, I’ll talk about what it takes to create multipliers yourself.